Author's note: Yay! You're still here!
Disclaimer: I own everything about Batman. Psych! No I don't.
---
Katie watched Crane support himself against the counter. His hand trembled, slipping periodically. Helping this man risked her career, but not helping him went against her ethics as a doctor for the criminally insane. And, regardless, it was Crane. She would do almost anything for him, even the broken shell of a Crane that stood in her galley kitchen.
"I would never let you die," Katie said, as if disappointed that she couldn't. "I'll help you as best I can with your wounds. That's it. Then you have to get out of here."
"Ok," Crane was alert now, but still shaking. "I need you to get your first aid kit and your sewing kit. I assume you have both. I'll make my way to your couch."
"My couch is cream colored. Can't we do this in the bathroom?"
Crane looked at Katie for a moment. He took a step from the counter and grabbed the wall just in time to stop himself from tumbling into her "dining room", which was just a smaller area between the kitchen and living room with enough room for a petite table. He used the table for support, and used other pieces of furniture to reach the couch. He crawled across it and lay on his back. Katie watched his voyage, then dragged her feet to the linen closet.
"Now what?" She stood over him with a kit in each hand, a hip cocked to the side.
"Pull up a chair."
Katie carried a dining room chair over to where Crane lay. She sat by his stomach with her left side against his right. Crane laid his injured arm across her bare lap. Her skin was smooth and soft against his arm, and he visibly shivered at the touch. Katie interpreted the shiver as a symptom of his current state.
Katie leaned over Crane and flicked on the lamp by the couch.
Crane swallowed hard. "Have you stitched anything before?"
"Do drapes count?"
"All you have to do is stitch diagonally one way, then back down in the other direction."
"This is so unsanitary. I shouldn't do this, you could lose your arm."
Crane used his free arm to pull a small spool from the elastic waistband of his boxer briefs. "No it isn't. Use this. Heat up the needle with a flame, put on the latex gloves from the kit, and presto; I'm fixed."
Katie held the spool between her thumb and pointer finger. "How did you get this?"
"When a nurse escorted me to the sickbay bathroom. It was shamefully easy."
"You anticipated needing stitches?"
"I did." In order to access the parking lot from his escape route, Crane knew he would have to break a small window and pull himself through. The gash on his arm came from that, not the car accident.
"When you're done with that, turn me towards you and do the same to my side."
"Turn yourself towards me, you're capable."
"I won't be," Crane said, grabbing a syringe from the same place he had the spool.
"That is officially the last thing you pull out of your underwear this evening, or I'm calling this off."
Crane smiled despite himself.
"You got that from the same place, I suppose?"
"They were both on a cart waiting for another patient. Add it to the list of problems with your new Arkham."
Crane popped the protective plastic cap off the syringe with his thumb.
"This is surreal," Katie murmured.
"If you want surreal, you should witness the horror show going on in my head."
"You're going to wind up with a Frankenstein scar if I do this."
Crane shot Katie a face that said, "Do I look like I care?" better than any words could.
Katie took the syringe from Crane. She shook her head at the gash and made no move to sedate him.
"You're really going to do this, aren't you?" Crane said. His voice was raspy and sounded far away.
"Of course I am," Katie said flatly. "Like you said, I care about my patients. I care too much."
"No Katie," Crane said, licking the cut in his lip absently. "You don't care for me in the same way you care for your other patients."
Katie glared at him.
"Touchy subject?" Crane said, his eyebrows raised.
Without warning, Katie speared Crane's shoulder with the syringe. He squeaked but smiled.
"That's why I like you," he whispered. His eyelids shut slowly like the closing curtain at a play and the smile faded from his blood stained lips.
Katie moistened a sterile pad with antibacterial solution and gently wiped the wound, replacing the bloody marks with yellow streaks. She saw a doctor friend suture a wound once. A drunk driver sideswiped their car. Though they weren't injured, the drunk driver was. None of them had cell phones and pay phones were out of walking distance, so Katie's friend used his emergency kit to sewed up the wound in the back of the driver's head, holding him until an ambulance came. Nothing about that memory was helpful for Katie, but it was the closest experience she had.
She sterilized a curved needle and grimaced as she pierced Crane's skin. The wound was four inches long and it took Katie a half hour to make her way up and back. It didn't look so bad, but she had never been so nauseas in her life. Then she remembered his hip.
She put her hands between the back of the couch and his thigh and upper arm. She grunted as she pulled him onto his side, facing her. She used the chair to support his freshly stitched arm and fetched another chair for herself.
With her fingertip, she gently pushed a stray hair away from Crane's purple and yellow eye. She couldn't help pitying him. He was truly lost without her at this moment. This made her both happy and sad at once, and the fact that it made her happy at all made it somehow worse.
She turned to his hip. His pants and the bottom of his white t-shirt were still damp with blood. She took a deep breath and slid his shirt to his bottom rib. No wound there. Damn, she thought, this makes it more complicated.
She tried to pull the side of his pants over his hip, but nothing budged. She undid the button above the zipper and tried again. Nothing. She unzipped his pants an inch and tried again. Still nothing. Another inch, and still nothing. Here we go then, she thought, and unzipped it the whole way. She slid two fingertips between the waistband of his underwear and pulled down an inch at his hip.
"Where the hell is your stupid wound," she mumbled.
After pulling down another two inches she found the source of the blood, a horizontal wound roughly the same size as the one on his arm. She tugged on his pants until any more tugging would have revealed too much, but just enough to access the gash.
She soaked another pad with solution and started cleaning the blood up by his waist. She slid the pad down his side and over the hill of his hip. Blood had spread all the way to his belly button. She looked up at his face, peaceful in dreamless sleep. She wanted to crawl between him and the couch and fall asleep, too.
Focusing back to the task on hand, she sewed his hip as she had his arm, but in only fifteen minutes. As she sat back and admired her handiwork it dawned on her. If he moved, it could split. And his pants certainly weren't going back over the wound for a little while. Great, she thought. Just great.
----
Crane awoke two hours later. He couldn't see out of one of his eyes. He reached up and pulled a post-it note off the eye.
"Don't move," it read.
He attempted to call for Katie but the sedative still robbed him of his words. He didn't need to speak, though, because she was asleep on the floor below him. He balled the note up in his free hand and aimed, using all his might to throw the ball at her face. It bounced off her cheek but didn't faze her.
Crane looked at his arm. Not too bad, he thought. He strained to see his hip but couldn't.
The phone rang. Katie opened her eyes and raised herself to her elbow.
Crane grunted at her and shook his head "no".
"I have to answer the phone."
"No," Crane finally protested.
"I always answer in case of emergency. You never know when a con will escape."
Katie retrieved the cordless phone from the cradle.
"Hello?"
"Hi Katie," it was Desai. "Sorry to bother you on a Friday night. Am I disturbing anything?"
Katie looked at Crane lying on her couch.
"Nope. Nothing."
"Stevens is having an episode like he did last month. He responds to you best. If I'm not disturbing anything, then I would like you to come in."
"Sure. Just give me forty five minutes."
Crane narrowed his eyes at her.
"Thanks, Katie. I'll give you a day off soon for this."
"No you won't, but that's ok."
Desai chuckled. "See you soon, then."
"I'm going to Arkham, but I'll be back in a couple hours. And no, I won't tell them you're here."
Crane finally found his voice. "Fine. But while you're there you can do me a favor that will get me out of here faster."
"No way, I've done enough favors this evening to last several lifetimes." She began walking to her bedroom.
"Go in the drawer that has my possessions from intake. All I need is a key from the ring in there. It looks different from all the others. That, and some medication would be nice."
Katie closed the door to her bedroom and changed into jeans and a green long sleeve t-shirt. She called a friend for a ride, since her car was still back at Arkham, and left the apartment without saying goodbye.
Katie arrived at Arkham only thirty-five minutes after hanging up with Desai. Her patient had become so problematic that they sedated him, and so her presence was no longer needed. Desai needn't apologize – these things happened.
"Still no sign of Crane," he told Katie as he walked with her through the halls. "He might not have made it."
"What do you mean?"
Desai stopped walking. "They think he might be dead."
Katie looked away from him. "Why would they think that?"
"I suppose that's where their evidence is leading them. I'm practically out of the loop now. I'm sorry, though. You did what you could with him."
Katie nodded and walked towards another hall. "I'll see you Sunday," she said to Desai.
Desai watched her walk away, feeling badly that she likely lost her patient.
Katie let herself into the intake wing. The first thing new patients saw upon arrival (assuming they weren't taken through an emergency entrance) was intake. There were no measures to truly improve the process. Men had to hand over what little personal belongings they had on them and say goodbye for months, years, or forever. Some of the boxes waiting for inmates to reclaim them were older than Katie's mother. Out of all the sad things Katie encountered at Arkham, intake was one of the worst.
The boxes were locked in drawers not alphabetized, but ordered by the prisoner's number. Katie brought Crane's box over to an adjacent stainless steel counter. Watch, belt, shoes, and the key ring. On the very top sat Crane's glasses. Katie turned them over in her hand, contemplating momentarily before putting them in her purse. She quickly discovered the key Crane asked for. It was longer than the rest with a square blue head. She put it in her pocket. She thought better of it at first, but then opened his wallet. Why shouldn't she, she thought, after all he had done to her?
License (goofy picture, she noted), Arkham ID (took the humor away from the license), a credit card, and fifty dollars. She put the items on the counter as she removed them. Between two membership cards to psychology fellowship organizations Katie found a folded piece of paper. The edges were worn. She unfolded it carefully.
"Sorry I missed you…"
Her dimples grew into full smile.
She put the note in her purse and everything else in the box. She left the empty wing and walked to her car with a bounce in her stride.
---
Katie handed Crane two pills and a glass of water. He scowled as the cold glass touched his wounded lip.
She returned twenty minutes later with coffee for him.
"Have they kicked in?"
He nodded, looking up at her from the same position on the couch.
"Are you hungry?"
Crane shook his head slowly. He attempted to roll onto his back and winched in pain.
"I put the note on your eye for a reason. You need to stay just like that until tomorrow morning at least, then we'll see what you can handle."
Katie's couch was L-shaped. She belly flopped onto the other leg of the couch.
Crane lifted his chin to look at her.
"So what does the key open?" she asked, a small grin playing on her face.
"The door to my freedom, that's all you need to know."
Katie unfolded the note and held it in front of Crane's face. "You've been carrying this with you for half a decade. Do you know what that means?"
"You tell me, Sherlock Saunders."
Katie mimicked Crane's facial ticks and low voice. "It means you don't care for me in the same way you care for your other doctors."
Crane took the note from Katie. "No it does not. It means I haven't cleaned my wallet in a while."
"Oh for the love of God," Katie mocked, rolling onto her back.
"What happens when they find out the good doctor stole my prescription from the asylum?"
"Nothing, because they won't."
"How do you figure? Don't you think they'll investigate every purchase or theft of that particular medication until they exhaust their search for me?"
"I'm sure they will."
"You are the most irritating person I have ever met."
"They won't find out because I didn't steal or buy them."
Crane blinked.
"I take them, too."
"Why?" he asked with sincere curiosity.
Katie rolled back over and rested her chin on her hands.
"Similar reason. Like I've told you before, not just anybody is attracted to our line of work."
"When did it start?"
"Childhood. Doesn't it always? After years of trauma it manifested as a defense mechanism. I heard voices and had obsessive-compulsive disorder. My brother's manifested into kleptomania. To each his own."
Crane noticed a picture over Katie's head on the wall behind the couch. It was Katie and a male Katie.
"But once we moved in with my grandmother, things started looking up. That's also when I started the medication."
"Moved in with your grandmother? Where are your parents?"
"Mom lives about an hour south of here."
"And your father?" Crane was intently watching Katie's face.
"Dead."
"Is that where some of the problems started?"
Katie rolled onto her side, her face at the same level as Crane's. "That's where most of the problems ended."
Crane continued looking at her face as she examined her fingernails.
"So you still need medication?" he asked at last.
"Once in a blue moon. I haven't taken it in months. When I need more, I just tell my doctor and he writes another prescription. But don't start getting ideas. He'd be suspicious if I suddenly asked for your dosage."
"Why didn't you turn me in?" Crane asked, his voice deep and tired, but interested in her answer.
"It would be selfish."
"Oh?" he said, yawning.
"If I turned you in, you'd be back in Arkham. I could keep you there and see you four days a week, probably more after all this. And…you couldn't leave… couldn't leave me."
She looked up from her hand, but he was already asleep.
Katie made her way to the bedroom and looked back at Crane. Whatever she felt wasn't reciprocated, and if it was…well, what's the point, she thought. There is no happily-ever-after with a crazy man who shows up in your kitchen after escaping an asylum. Any possible outcome would just break her heart. He needed to leave tomorrow before she invested anything else in his well-being. Likely nothing could make this man well, not even Katie.
---
Crane woke up just as the sun began to touch the treetops. Katie's bedroom door was shut. He tried to swing his feet to the ground, but even the attempt was too painful. Instead he inched his way to the corner of the "L" couch and sat up. Sitting didn't hurt too much. There was an end table slightly taller than the couch just behind it. On it sat the lamp Katie had switched on the night before, but other than that the top was covered with picture frames of all sizes and colors. He grabbed the picture closest to him and examined it.
The woman was presumably Katie's mother, with a very small Katie and Katie's brother on her lap. Katie looked a great deal like her mother, except that her mother was even thinner, had shorter, curly hair, piercing green eyes and olive skin. It was as if someone had adjusted the color on Katie. Little Katie looked remarkably like Katie now, though she had much longer and lighter hair and, obviously, smaller proportions. Her eyes were even bigger. And the brother looked like Katie, too, but with the mother's olive skin and green eyes.
He replaced the picture and grabbed another. This one was of Katie recently. She seemed very excited about the beer she was holding and the man with his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulder. Crane thought this man looked like everything he wasn't; physically strong, tall, and tan, with close-cropped dark hair and large, dark eyes. The guy looked just as happy about Katie as she was about him. Crane didn't like this picture.
He put it back and took another. This one was of Katie and a female friend flanking either side of a scruffy guy with a guitar. The women had passes around their necks and were exploding with glee. This one bothered Crane far less. The fourth picture he grabbed was of Katie's brother. It was a black and white picture of him laughing, seated at the dinner table. There were other pictures of friends and presumably family, but the picture of Katie and the tan man bothered Crane. Who was he and why was he touching her?
Katie's alarm buzzed. A minute later she shut herself into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The unwanted instant visual of Katie showering flashed through Crane's mind. Any significant positive feelings towards her would hinder his plan. He reminded himself of the things that bothered him about her over and over until she finished that retched shower.
Katie's phone rang as she emerged from the bathroom. Holding a light blue towel around herself with one hand, she plucked the cordless phone from its cradle across the living room from Crane. She turned her back to him. He looked away from her slicked back wet hair and damp skin. So much skin. He poked his bruised eye to disrupt the thought process.
"Hey," she said, standing over him. "Think you can clean the stitches yourself?" Without waiting for a response she put ointment, Q-tips, gauze, and tape on his lap. "Wrap your arm when you leave. You don't want an infection."
"I can't leave today," he said in disbelief, not looking directly at her. "I can't even get off your couch."
"I did what I told you I'd do. I don't want you here when I come home." Katie returned to her bedroom before her voice contradicted her words.
Now Crane didn't have to try very hard to think about how much she bothered him.
Ten minutes later Katie breezed to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water, and headed for the door.
"Katie, I want to leave as much as you want me to, but it can't happen today."
Katie faced him from the door, his tired eyes barely visible over the back of the couch. "It's my birthday. People will come over even if I tell them not to. Leave today, or explain yourself to them when they arrive." She opened the door.
"I'm not leaving today. You're lucky I'm letting you go out."
Katie felt ill. She shut the door and approached the back of the couch. "You really are delusional," she said, her chin quivering. "I'm lucky you're letting me go out? What upper hand do you have? If anyone's lucky, it's you." She twisted her hands on the water bottle. "Listen, Crane, I have a job, friends, a family…I can't risk that to help you. I shouldn't have done as much as I did. You put yourself in this position and you can get yourself out. I can't believe I let it get this far."
Crane smirked. "You've been carrying a torch for me for years, you wouldn't put it out now just because I escaped and came to you for help. Face it, Katie, you love that I came here. You love that I need your help."
Her eyes overflowed but her words were still angry. "I didn't invite you - why did you come, huh? I'm obviously not the only one feeling something…ugh, god…screw you. You're a horrible man," she growled, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.
"Perhaps you're a glutton for punishment. Replacing your abusive father with an abusive love interest."
Katie looked up from her sleeve, her eyes wide and her jaw clenched. She stood there for a moment before storming around the couch.
"Get. Out. Now," she said through her teeth. The words came from somewhere deep inside her stomach. They were gritty and sounded coated in bile.
Crane stayed put, but wasn't quite sure what to make of her response. He expected tears, but what came out of her mouth.
"You aren't the criminal mastermind you think you are. Do you wanna know what you are?"
"What am I, Katie?" He tried to sound smug.
"You're pathetic. You used your fear toxin to conduct your little experiments, but you weren't bright enough to explore an antidote for yourself. Your career lead you to the head of an institution before you were thirty, and you wound up strapped to a chair inside it. Then you were let loose, only to wind up right back in a cell after someone tazered you. And now you're here, at my mercy, and not giving me a single concrete reason not to push you out the window." She sobbed after the last sentence. She was so disgusted that her words were true. "You…were…brilliant," she said between tearful gasps. "You…inspired me. I never…forgot about you because…be…cause…" she couldn't finish. She remained standing, crying with arms crossed.
Crane rolled his head to the table of pictures. He held the one of Katie and the tan man out to her. "What about him? Why am I so important when someone like this is in your life?"
Katie snatched the picture from Crane and turned it around to face him. "That's my friend Casey. He had a heart condition and wasn't supposed to live to graduate high school, and this was his graduation from college. You'll be happy to know he's dead now, though."
She meant to throw the picture at the section of couch next to Crane, but a corner of the frame landed directly on the wound in his forearm. He immediately held the arm against his chest with the other hand, trying to stifle moans of distress. He looked up at her with large, pained eyes, astonished she would do that to him.
"I didn't mean to do that," she said, the words running together as if one single word. She kneeled beside him and took his arm in her hand. "Let me see it," she said quietly.
Several of the stitches were torn. She rested her elbow on the couch and hid her face in her hand, still holding his arm in the other.
Crane breathed deeply to control the pain. He regained some composure and slid his arm out of her hand. She turned her face to him and put her hands in her lap.
"I know you didn't mean it. I didn't mean to upset you so much." Crane's words lacked emotion.
Katie nodded. "Yes you did. Yes you did. You wouldn't have said what you said if you didn't want to hurt me. Contrary to what you would like to believe, I am not your pet. I'm a strong woman and a good person, and I refuse to let you diminish me until I forget that about myself. You were a good person. I mourn that person, because whatever you are now is far removed."
Katie pulled herself to her feet and picked her purse up from the floor by the door. She walked back to Crane.
"Put these back on," she said, handing him his glasses. "Take a good look at yourself. I hope you'll be as disappointed as I am."
Katie left the apartment. Crane heard her car door shut and the little engine start up. He looked at the glasses in his hand, the still lit lamp reflecting off the lenses. He slid them on. The apartment slowly came into focus.
Crane bared the pain to stumble his way to the bathroom. He held himself up against Katie's white pedestal sink and shut the medicine cabinet so he could look in the mirror. He was surprised by the black eye and red welt across his forehead. His skin was almost the color of paper and the red scratches from his overdose episode were still quite visible. With Katie out of the apartment, he could admit some of it to himself. He had been sloppy. But that didn't mean he was at her mercy. That phrase crawled under his skin. At her mercy. She'll see what mercy is, he telepathically told his reflection.
TBC
Author's note: She'll totally see what mercy is in the next chapter – oh boy!